My Great-Great-Grandparents came to the United States in the early 1900’s from Hungary.

I always found it fascinating that names were misspelled, or changed when coming through Ellis Island, either by error or as a way to “Americanize”. When I was researching my great-grandma her last name kept coming up with different spellings and I could never figure out which one was correct.

She was born “Margit Szilagyi” in Hungary and by the time she stepped foot in the U.S. she was “Margaret Szillagyi”.

I got the chance to speak today, for the first time ever with my 1st cousin 2x removed. He shared this little piece of family history with me, and I couldn’t be more grateful!

-The story goes that there was a spelling error at Ellis Island and an extra L was added to the last name. So anytime you see a Szillagyi spelled with 2 L’s you know they’re a relative!!! 

Joseph and Elizabeth Szillagyi came to the United States in 1907 aboard the  Pannonia that departed from Fiume and arrived in New York. They arrived with their 3 children, Margaret, Joseph and Kalman, and had one more child later ; a daughter Rose who was born the United States.

 

Below is the ship’s manifest.

 

 

 

…. and a closer look at The Szillagyi family. – Or “Szilagyi” since the manifest was written before the clerical error! 🙂